(a)
The envelope of pills you sent
arrived the same day as the shipment
of elephants and disembodied
voices. Skeptics do not believe
we can prove we are not dreaming,
but they are very grateful for the existence of
anti-psychotics. Exiled on a rock
in the middle of the ocean, this haunting
would cease to be a reality problem and
become a mere disturbance.
Stevens wrote many a sun and even a green queen
into existence. Sometimes I understand I’m just one elephant
in the crate of elephants left on my doorstep.
Stevens was vice-president of the Hartford
Livestock Insurance Company and in his final
days at the hospital he confessed to having
a certain emptiness in his life. Disembodied voices can be
a kindness. Most people would never admit to
having poetic conversations with a dead
insurance broker, yet many have memorized Stevens’ lines.
There have been many philosophical arguments about
the golden mountain. They’ve had a hard time
proving something non-existent doesn’t exist.
Meinong allowed for all logical
subjects of sentences to have some kind of being.
When the crate of giant cockroaches arrives,
I don’t know whether or not to find it reassuring.